


Path to healing

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bonding, F/F, Healing, Post-Season/Series 02, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29142414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: Kara gets Bobbi out from Ward's claws, but that doesn't mean their relationship gets fixed overnight. But maybe with snacks and books and post-it notes and a little help from their friends, amends can be made.
Relationships: Bobbi Morse/Kara Lynn Palamas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6
Collections: slowly learning that life is okay {AOS stories about healing}





	Path to healing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lazyfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/gifts).



> Hello everyone, the first story in my collection of 2020 Valentine's gifts!
> 
> Written for the prompt: "I should shut up and listen, I try to fill every silence / I should stumble in love instead of running and hiding."

Kara is not the first thing Bobbi sees when she opens her eyes after the surgery. She is not the person that sleeps by her bedside when nightmares get rough, she is not the person that takes her to rehab, that dries her tears because rehab has no right being so goddamn hard. She is not the shoulder she relies on, the hand that helps her stand up, the ear that is open to listening to her complain. 

But that doesn’t mean Kara is not around, in different ways. She is present on the books that appear on her nightstand, one every two weeks, and when Bobbi starts going through them faster, one each week. She is present on Bobbi’s favorite snacks that are always in the pantry, and in the Cactus Cooler cans that get magically re-stocked in the fridge (and that is, in itself, a small miracle). 

Bobbi has checked with her friends, and none of them is doing this, and there is no reason for them to lie. It has to be Kara. It has to be.

Bobbi understands the distance; in fact, she appreciates it. Kara was the one that got her out, unconscious after The Bastard’s torture (she is not dignifying him with a name like he is a person instead of a collection of hate crimes and sick games), true, but she was also the one that got her away from base and onto the plane. Bobbi can sympathize with the revolting way her mind has been played with, and she can understand why Kara placed the blame of it on her, someone she could harm, a flesh she could hurt, a soul she could squeeze for the last drop of hope. Bobbi understands. But despite everything, the truth is that Bobbi got hurt and harmed and squeezed dry for everything she got to give, and she can not forget that easily. 

Jemma tells her that Kara is doing well with therapy and putting the pieces of herself back together little by little, and honestly, Bobbi only wishes the best for her. She imagines that, with time, Kara’s guilt will subdue and then the small gestures will stop. It is good that they are both finding paths to healing, and it is good that those paths are apart from each other. 

But then the notes begin. It starts simply at first, just pressed flowers and sometimes even tree leaves in the middle of the books. Then it is bookmarks with cheesy and inspirational quotes, things Bobbi imagines her aunts would keep around the house in precious stitch-works- she is not admitting that some of them, corny and naive as they are, pushed her close to tears, and she never will.

By the time the books start coming with post-it notes, poems and selected fragments scribbled in hesitant handwriting, Bobbi knows she needs to put a stop to it. Enough time has passed that she is already out of the most gruesome part of rehab and tentatively back on the field, and with her life somehow back on track, it’s harder to still be wary of Kara. They have run into each other a couple of times- the base is not that big- and though Kara always retreats like a scared mouse, it has been long enough for Bobbi to appreciate the changes time has operated on her: she talks more, smiles more, doesn’t flinch nor lash out when people get too close. Both Fitz and Jemma talk a lot about how useful she has been for S.H.I.E.L.D., and how nice she has grown to be, and Bobbi gotta trust in her friends, if nothing else.

Besides, as much as Bobbi appreciates the never ending supply of mystery books and romance novels and contemporary poetry anthologies, it must be costing Kara a fortune. 

She recruits both Daisy and Jemma’s help- they balance each other nicely, those two- to put together a gift basket for Kara. Considering the number of gifts and the amount of attention that Kara has poured onto her, what Bobbi knows about her in return is almost shameful. She is determined to change that.

She waits in the lounge room after Kara’s training with May- she thought about knocking on her bunk after, but probably neither of them would be super comfortable with being ambushed in a small space.

Kara walks in from the hallways drying her face with a towel, and a stream of emotions passes over her face when she sees Bobbi. 

“Please stay,” Bobbi says when she is already taking a step back. “I have something for you.”

Kara doesn’t fly but doesn’t come closer either, and Bobbi has to call her with a hand gesture to snap her out of her reverie. The gift basket- meticulously prepared to the best of Jemma’s abilities and mania- is on the coffee table, and Bobbi pushes it towards Kara.

“For me?” They are the first words she has said to Bobbi directly in a long time, and it’s with both pleasure and relief that Bobbi realizes her voice doesn’t trigger any unpleasant memories, and also matches the idea of her Bobbi has formed in her mind from the last months of written communication.

“It’s the least I could do after everything you had done for me, Kara.” Kara touches the edge of the basket with reverent fingers, and Bobbi feels a bit uncomfortable sitting down when she is the only one. “This is also to say that I release you from whatever guilt you are still feeling.” 

“It’s not because of guilt that I do it,” Kara corrects her, and when Bobbi looks at her, she looks surprised herself by her reaction. She is blushing furiously, but she is not stopping. “Or, well, maybe at first it was. But not now.”

That’s… something Bobbi hadn’t even considered. In the way she imagined things to be, she and Kara were tied up together because of their past, and that’s why now that she feels liberated from the burden of that past she wanted to free Kara too. It hadn’t even occurred to her that there could be something new between them.

She must have been silent for too long because Kara moves to sit on the couch too- not close to her, but much closer than she was before.

“Then why are you doing it now?”

Kara is playing with her hands on her lap, her face completely blushed. _ Now you know what she looks like with a blush, _ says Bobbi’s inner voice. It’s not much in terms of knowing her, but it’s a start.

“It has been hard, for me, these last few months,” Kara begins, and Bobbi’s heart constricts in her chest. “I know everyone went above and beyond, but still. Hard.” She raises her head, and Bobbi takes notes about the color of her eyes from up close. “Forming bonds after having so much trust being broken… also hard. I can’t express how grateful I am that Coulson let me stay, and May is training me and the girls treat me as one of them.”

“That’s just who they are.”

“I wanted to make amends with you, but I also wanted to earn that trust again. If you could forgive me, well, maybe I could forgive everyone else too.”

“And how have you been doing on that front?”

Kara laughs, and it’s so surprising that it makes Bobbi raise her eyebrows. Another thing that is going down on her mental journal about her. 

“Not so great, actually.” She stops the fidgeting with her hands, places them both palms down on the sides of her knees- it looks like a conscious decision, like something she picked up in therapy. Bobbi feels almost proud of her. “But that’s okay. And part of the reason why I kept with your things- because it is something I enjoyed doing, doing things to make you happy, and why couldn’t I keep up with something that was good for me and good in general?” She waits for a beat, traces a meandering line over her thigh with the tip of her index finger. “Hope it didn’t make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it was good, actually.” It’s good to say those words out loud, not because it is something she has kept inside for too long, but because it is one of those truths that only manifest upon being said. Something she didn’t realize she felt until now, that she is saying she feels it. “It healed something I didn’t think could be healed.”

“Good.” Kara’s fingers are pressing down on her legs, and Bobbi takes note to look for healthier methods to deal with anxiety to maybe suggest to her, and also maybe get her a mani kit? Which color would compliment best her complexion? “It was good for me too, having someone to pour my heart over without having to worry too much.”

It dawns on Bobbi then that she does have a lot of things she knows about Kara to add to her imaginary checklist: her favorite post-it color, and the particular way she crosses her tes, and the fact that she favors stories with happy endings- who could blame her- and that there is this one poet that she seems to go back to over and over and over. It hits her like a trainwreck.

“You can still do it,” she says, and once again it surprises them both. “But maybe we could do it in person, no? Hang out, just the two of us?”

_ Her lower lip trembles when she is touched. _ The list seems to grow longer and longer with new spaces to be filled the more she fills it, and Bobbi realizes she is not worried or annoyed about that at all.

“I would like that. Very much.

“Good. Which is your favorite Star Wars movie?”

“Um, I haven’t watched any?”

Bobbi lets out a strong huff, making sure it’s obvious she is doing it in a humorous way. This is still too tender to allow for a blunder on her part. 

“Blasphemy,” she whispers and Kara lets out a tentative smile. “Well then, brace yourself, young Padawan, you are in for a ride.”

How warm Kara’s hand feels on hers is the next thing she puts down on her list, but it’s not the last. 

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of LLF Comment Project, whose goal is to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites:
> 
>   * Short comments
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